Iceland Travel Stories

Góðan Daginn! Welcome to the Iceland Travel Stories. Within these pages, you can read selected stories and musings about our waterfall-themed adventures in Land of Sagas. Hopefully, you'll find these stories entertaining and educational. Perhaps you might get a good laugh at our expense, or you might find some nuggets that you can apply to your own travels.

Thumb through the travel stories below. They are arranged chronologically with the most recent escapade at the top. Enjoy :)

(8-July 2007 to 9-July 2007) Á Leiðinni Heim: ...we started to empty out the car and prepare for our trip home. As we were doing this, a familiar-looking Icelandic elderly man walked up to us and tried to engage in a conversation with us. Unfortunately, he didn't speak any english so communication was difficult at best even with my attempts at Icelandic. Julie and I thought he wanted to talk to us because he might have been the parking enforcement guy. After some futile attempts at communication beyond a sentence or two, I eventually asked if he could come into the Metropolitan Hotel with me so we could talk to the receptionist who obviously knew both Icelandic and English... [read more]

(5-July 2007 to 7-July 2007) Mired in the Sights of the South: I got pretty good shots of the falls disappearing into the narrow slot alcove when viewed from afar. I was determined to try to see the falls past the short narrow slot canyon with boulders wedged above. So I took off my socks, wore my chacos, and started wading. And, well, the water was ice cold... [read more]

(2-July 2007 to 4-July 2007) Jökuls and Sandurs: Apparently, the other driver attempted to take a different line through the river and didn't even make it to the river. By this time, passengers from both buses were watching like paying spectators. Our driver tried to help the other driver, who was a strikingly-dressed Madonna-lookalike female driver... [read more]

(30-June 2007 to 1-July 2007) Surprises Out East: Before we left town, Julie wanted to take photos of this museum near the end of town called Tækniminjasafn Austurlands. Without knowing we had to pay to see the inside, we went inside and checked out the displays. A guy eventually came out to us and guilted us into paying for museum admission, which we weren't aware of until I noticed a sign just outside the door indicating as such... [read more]

(27-June 2007 to 29-June 2007) The Grand Canyon of the North: We then continued on eastwards around the southern and eastern banks of Mývatn and then up the wider unpaved road on the east side of Jökulsá á Fjöllum. In one stretch of road at Mývatn, we heard things hitting the windshield as if there was a gravel rain or something. It turned out that we had driven through a cloud of midges! Good thing we weren't standing outside under such a swarm! [read more]

(23-June 2007 to 26-June 2007) Into The West: The receptionist was named Claus and he was an interesting guy in that he was German and it seemed that he was in the middle of learning Icelandic. Claus sensed that I was also learning the language and we immediately hit it off struggling to communicate in Icelandic. As he said, it was funny that two foreigners were talking in Icelandic to each other in the loneliest Hotel in Europe of all places! [read more]

(20-June 2007 to 22-June 2007) Three Days At The Smoking Bay: ...we walked around the center of town aimlessly looking for places to eat for dinner. We had to look long and hard because we struggled with sticker shock as every place offering what we thought would be good gourmet Icelandic dishes would cost us over $70 USD just for a main dish... [read more]